Mother charged with neglect

[Knackeredboot]

This article has been posted on Facebook and has attracted a lot of angry comments about it from people saying the mother should be steriliser and that she's evil.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c864g0evz9jo

The crime was neglect of a baby that resulted in its death from a mother that had failed to notice that her baby hadn't woken in the night for her usual feeds due to the mothers level of intoxication.

There's no indication that the baby would usually have to be woken for feeds, just that it was the babys usual routine.

The mother was awake but drunk. But had she been asleep then would that have been considered neglect too? She checked on the baby from a distance but did not try to stir. Again, I wouldn't go into my 5mo's room regularly in the night for a close up check on them as I would be asleep also.

It says that the level of intoxication was 2.5times the driving limit which is irrelevant as she wasnt driving.

Am i missing something here? I feel like the commenters are being incredibly hard on her based on the little detail in the article. Although I'm not a big drinker I know loads of couples that get smashed on the weekend while at home with the kids.

Not following guidance doesn’t necessarily equate to ‘neglect’.

It’s guidance. Not law.

Did the baby not have a father?

Reading the article made me feel nauseous tbh, and I am surprised you didn't op.

Drinking heavily around babies is not acceptable, and she had another young child in the house too. There was no capable adult to care for these children should they wake in the night, or need somebody. How did she think she could safely deal with this, or deal with it at all even? She didn't, she just cared about getting off her face; this is fine but go on a night out and get a babysitter! That baby deserved a Mum to keep her safe.

Putting a baby on the sofa in another room to sleep is unsafe to begin with, nevermind with heavy intoxication.

This is not an unavoidable SIDS story at all op, and an insult too parents who have been through that.

It's not normalised behaviour:

• to let a baby sleep unsupervised on a sofa
• to drink yourself stupid when solely responsible for a baby amd other children
• to fail to check on a baby in over 12 hours

It's tragic and maybe the baby would have died even if she had been paying attention but it is absolutely neglect.

Some people shouldn’t have children.

Today I had to read the Social Services report of a child I work with. It was absolutely horrendous and I feel scarred.
If forced sterilisation was a thing, I’d be happy beyond belief.

I think it's horribly sad and I can't see the benefit to society of giving her a harsh sentence when she will have suffered so much.
I always think it's a red herring when reports mention how much over the drink driving limit someone was to emphasise how drunk they were, when the drink driving limit is by definition very low.

There's a psychological concept called the Just World hypothesis, where we all want to believe the world is a safe and fair place, so when we hear of something terrible that's happened to someone, we try and find a reason they deserved it to make us feel like "well that wouldn't happen to me". I think this can make parents judge bereaved parents who have made mistakes more harshly in some cases.

I couldn't agree more. Why have children if you're just going to continue acting as you did before them; it's sickening. She already had a young child too, why have a second one! I cannot imagine what you must have read, and hope you manage to get some sleep tonight. There are some things that never leave you.

When ambulance crews arrived, they noted signs of rigor mortis which indicated Rhian may have been dead for some time

Poor baby

Is there any particular reason why you’re trying desperately to absolve this woman of any responsibility whatsoever?

Is this is your sincere reaction to this story? Your have less concern for the helpless child than you do for the drunken mother?

What planet are you on?

Maybe it’s one of those situations where each bit on its own isn’t terrible but add them all up
and it’s a bad picture, plus also the cause of death.

DS was in a room by himself from day 3. That may have been 20 years ago but I’m certain plenty of babies still are. I was also not one for frequent checks when he was supposed to be asleep, nor did I use a baby monitor. But then I wasn’t ever drunk, he was sleeping about 2 metres from me in a very very carefully chosen cot, etc etc.

Thank you, lovely. As someone who works with children, it pained me beyond belief. As an animal lover, it will never leave me x

No sorry. I would never have got drunk while A was the sole caregiver. Hell I wouldn’t even do it with older kids. If I ever had a night out while babies were little (few and far between & for weddings usually) it would be on the understanding that their dad or my mum was responsible for them, not me. And I was breastfeeding so never got drunk anyway.

OP, re your update - Who puts their kid on a sofa “to watch them” -have they not heard of a baby monitor?!

It isn't "horribly sad." That is finding out Doreen down the streets cat has passed away.
This is utterly devastating, and nauseating. And no this isn't a "mistake", it is serious neglect. And no this wouldn't happen to most of us, it isn't forgetting to put your child's projector on is it.

Yes but 2.5 the drink driving limit is very high. You can easily look up what that is, and the kind of impairment someone will have at that level, and it is not just a little tipsy.

And she was at that level sometime after 9am the next morning. So who knows what it would have been at 3am.

I didn’t do any of this. Obviously it’s irresponsible.

However it was probably also bad luck. There will be parents in every town who behave like this and their dc survives. I won’t say thrives- not if it’s a regular scenario. It speaks to a generally chaotic environment where a child can’t thrive.

Poor baby.

I'm not trying to absolve her of responsibility. I just regularly see/hear about this sort of behaviour when obviously SIDS doesn't happen and so I was surprised that she was so condemned by public commenters when certainly from what I hear, while it's not NORMAL behaviour, there are behaviours that have become normalised.

I think the babys death is an absolute tragedy and will have devastated so many.

She made a choice to leave her baby on a sofa and drink and smoke all through the night without checking on her. She’s lucky it wasn’t manslaughter.

I'm not sure what is to be gained by voicing judgements of her. The poor child is dead and cannot be taught back. His mother's life will I assume be intolerable to her from hence forth forever.

I doubt she made the decisions to drink vodka in excess and leave her baby on the sofa from a position of happiness and strong mental health. I assume she was drinking alone, as no mention has been made of another adult also being held responsible? Again, drinking that amount of vodka alone is generally not a sign of a great life. However bad her life was, it's now infinitely worse.

The lesson I would take from this is that we should all support each other, and especially new mothers, in the desperate hope things don't get to this point.

Drinking 'large quantities of vodka' mixed with Irish Liqueur sounds like a lot of alcohol and she was probably a lot more than 2.5 times over the drink drive limit at one point, presuming she wasn't tested until the morning. Together with the fact that a baby shouldn't be left in another room on a sofa as they can suffocate, it was neglectful. Whether or not anything could have been done in time if she hadn't been drunk and the baby hadn't been on the sofa, the mother would likely have had more awareness about her even if she'd been asleep, if there had been any changes like crying etc.

However much you hate her/deplore her actions, the woman can in no sense be considered "lucky".

Says drinking with a friend

So when someone has 'suffered enough' they should be absolved from responsibility?

You are right. A consultant and a GP leave 3 small children in bed and they go for a meal nearby. 3 year old gets abducted and never seen again. They don't get charged with anything. All a out perception/status.

I completely disagree that drinking to that degree while in charge of young children has become normalised. Have A drink, sure. A couple of glasses of wine after putting the kids to bed is very normal. Cracking open a bottle of vodka and getting completely hammered absolutely isn't normalised. Not at all.

I’m not seeing sadness and mental health problems in the CPS statement… the article says With both children asleep, Birks and a friend who was visiting opened a full bottle of vodka, ahead of Birks's birthday the next day.
The pair consumed large quantities of vodka mixed with orange juice and Irish cream liqueur in a separate room from where Rhian was sleeping.
Birks ate nothing to counteract the alcohol's effects and left the house several times to smoke cigarettes, according to the CPS.